When I moved from Microsoft to Linux last year, I thought I'd have to say Goodbye to JWPce, which for me is just about the most useful aid to learning the written language I know. I tried StarDict and gWaei (see earlier thread) but they didn't measure up. It was about six months before I discovered Wine, and even then it was a while before I got to grips with it.

Anyway, I gave it a try and to my surprise it works. Apart, that is, from the stroke-count feature of the kanji radical lookup - and I can live without that. I did try downloading the C++ source code and a Makefile "for generating an executable suitable for Wine" from The JWPce Support page at http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~grosenth/c_download.html but couldn't get it to work. Googling shows that others had had the same problem but no answers were available - but then, "make" doesn't work across all distros, I believe. Still, the original ex-Windows jwpce.exe works through Wine well enough. I've also downloaded the latest EDICT and ENAMDICT (my old versions hadn't been updated for years) so am really pleased to have my favourite Japanese dictionary/WP back again.

It's proving very useful at the moment as I've been following Prime Minister Hatoyama on Twitter at http://twitter.com/hatoyamayukio and there are a lot of new words to learn. Yes, I know you can use rikai.com but with JWPce you can make your own vocabularies and print them.

Now that my wifi card appears to be supported under Linux (and not hard locking the machine when I enabled it no less), I've started spending a little more time in Linux.

I'm looking at a few different options right now for porting JLS (The Japanese Learning Suite) to something a little more cross platform... but I will probably try making it into web applications first.

phreadom wrote:I'm looking at a few different options right now for porting JLS (The Japanese Learning Suite) to something a little more cross platform... but I will probably try making it into web applications first.

I just downloaded and installed this out of curiosity. Pretty neat looking and I got to level 22 on the hiragana/romaji match game. My brain is now mush

phreadom wrote:I'm looking at a few different options right now for porting JLS (The Japanese Learning Suite) to something a little more cross platform... but I will probably try making it into web applications first.

I just downloaded and installed this out of curiosity. Pretty neat looking and I got to level 22 on the hiragana/romaji match game. My brain is now mush

It's in need of updating... so I'm hoping to just implement it as a series of web apps for now. The old programmer moved on to other hobbies and left the program to me, and I'm not at all familiar with the programming language it's written in... so I can't easily continue the work where he left off on it.

Hopefully what I'm working on will be better in the end as it will be available to users regardless of Operating System. (JLS is currently for Windows only)

(Plus the development version of the kana match game is so cute! You can see it in the screenshots on that site... I made all the custom graphics for it to make it more fun to play... but then Scott (my buddy who is the programmer) never got around to finishing the next major update to JLS... so maybe my web version will be the first real launch of the new look)

phreadom wrote:.... The old programmer moved on to other hobbies and left the program to me, and I'm not at all familiar with the programming language it's written in... so I can't easily continue the work where he left off on it.

What language is it written in?

Don't complain to me that people kick you when you're down. It's your own fault for lying there

phreadom wrote:.... The old programmer moved on to other hobbies and left the program to me, and I'm not at all familiar with the programming language it's written in... so I can't easily continue the work where he left off on it.

Roy Candler wrote: Still, the original ex-Windows jwpce.exe works through Wine well enough. I've also downloaded the latest EDICT and ENAMDICT (my old versions hadn't been updated for years) so am really pleased to have my favourite Japanese dictionary/WP back again.

Since I rarely use Windows I have never used JWP/JWPce much. With Linux I run my old "xjdic" client in a kterm window (any Japanese-capable window will do, but the old kterm still does it best.)I can then cut/past words into it from any app, including OpenOffice. I've never felt the need for an integrated WP/dictionary, and the cut/paste into xjdic is faster than the method in JWPce.

xjdic can have up to 10 dictionary files, and has the option of looking up a word in all 10, whichcan be very handy. With kterm, you can set it to do a lookup immediately on the middle-button paste, which means you can do lookups without touching the keyboard.

Many thanks to Jim Breen and phreadom for those last two contributions. Seems like xjdic is worth looking into, so I've downloaded the .tgz file and all available information. Looks like being a wet weekend here in Kent, but I'll have something to keep me occupied indoors.

Well, I said I'd let you know . . . fact is, I came to a halt at step 'e' of the installation, never having had to edit a Makefile before. I need to do some finding-out before dipping my toe any deeper into these waters.

Meanwhile, Glenn Rosenthal's JWPce is doing sterling work, although running it via Wine does seem like over-working the poor old PC.